Second Quest: With all due respect, Ratner is an inferior helmer to Singer, imho. The great "Rush Hours 1 & 2" notwithstanding........

The Superman Returns trailer attached to many X3 prints is amazing. "The Last Stand" is the perfect advertising vehicle for Kal-El & co. What, with it grossing 110 million for the Memorial Day four-day weekend, I don't see how Warner Bros. could reach more people.

It didn't have the John Williams main title, but the impact was still there. I, for one, am psyched. Can't you tell?

Drew_Atreides: I saw that technology done on computer images. On an episode of Law & Order: SVU, Mariska Hargitay's Det. Benson is made twenty years younger. Had to do w/ porn sites taking 'of age' models and making them look like children to legally attract pedophiles. I never though they'd flesh out the technology this fast to use it as the opening scene in a summer tentpole film. I agree with you, their faces looked synthetic. I'm sure in three years or so, they'll get it right. This technology can help the eventual Indiana Jones IV. Knock off twenty years from Harrison and Sean so they can go at it with Nazis again. Forget this fifties stuff. lol

While the younger versions weren't 100% perfect, they were pretty damn good. Charles looked like Picard in TNG S1.

As for the film itself, I'll list some of the (many) problems I had with it. [insert spoiler warning for anyone dumb enough to be in the thread]

- Angel's character was completely pointless. I thought there was going to be some promise with that first scene of him trying to cut his wings off as a kid, but after that he had like 3 lines.

- The Danger Room scene, though cool, seemed more to be there just to say "There, we did the damn Danger Room scene, and threw in a Sentinal, now shut up!" And speaking of the Sentinal, you could tell they were rushed because all you could see was some damn headlights like it was a car or something coming to get them.

- Cyclops going out like a punk after about 6 lines was bad enough, but to kill the leader of the X-Men off screen? Though I guess I shouldn't really be surprised since he was the most underused character by Singer as well, especially in X2.

- Don't even get me started on the damb-ass explination of the (not so Dark) Pheonix. They should have left her out of the movie and just focused on the Cure storyline and waited for Singer to come back for X4. If you can't do something right, don't do it at all.

- Juggernaut. I don't know what was worse, his costume or his crappy lines. "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" will go down as one of the dumbest lines ever. And who else was super pissed when Charles rolled by him and they didn't even look at each other?

- Mystique being turned human was just dumb, as was Magneto, but thankfully the end of the movie confirmed that this is only temporary. Kind of makes it a bit of a cop out though. If you're going to do something that major, at least have the testicular fortitude to follow through with it.

- Professor X dying pretty much did it in for me, and from that point on I was just waiting for the movie to be over as I realized that the writers obviouly didn't care about the source matieral and were just out to make a movie that people would talk about. The fact that Charles apparently comes back to life after the end credits means nothing, as he won't be played by Stewart in any future films.

Add in a bunch of crappy fight scenes and some even worse one-liners, and this movie falls far short of the previous two, and even lower than I was expecting (which wasn't much). Here's hoping that Superman makes a billion dollars!

- Juggernaut. I don't know what was worse, his costume or his crappy lines. "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" will go down as one of the dumbest lines ever. And who else was super pissed when Charles rolled by him and they didn't even look at each other?

The Juggernaut line was an inside joke. It comes from this:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3934651591022114445&pl=true

The people who knew where it came from laughed their butts off because we knew that it was a nod to what these two guys did.

Add in a bunch of crappy fight scenes and some even worse one-liners, and this movie falls far short of the previous two, and even lower than I was expecting (which wasn't much). Here's hoping that Superman makes a billion dollars!

well considering X3 has made around $44.5 million on it's first day alone means some people don't care about the story. it's going to beat spiderman 1's 3 day weekend record

- Angel's character was completely pointless. I thought there was going to be some promise with that first scene of him trying to cut his wings off as a kid, but after that he had like 3 lines.

I agree, since there was gonna be no Gambit and no Nightcrawler I decided to get hyped up for Angel instead. And then it was like "Hey, it's Angel!! OK bye bye".

wild_karrde said:

- Juggernaut. I don't know what was worse, his costume or his crappy lines. "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" will go down as one of the dumbest lines ever. And who else was super pissed when Charles rolled by him and they didn't even look at each other?

It would have been very nice to have some recognition to their family ties. But as for Juggernaut in general I liked him. At least I didn't think he was as bad as everyone says and the line "Don't you know who I am? I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" kinnda made me think of Vinnie Jones' hard man roles in British Gangster films.

wild_karrde said:

- Mystique being turned human was just dumb, as was Magneto, but thankfully the end of the movie confirmed that this is only temporary. Kind of makes it a bit of a cop out though. If you're going to do something that major, at least have the testicular fortitude to follow through with it.

I actually have a theory about why the cure didn't work on Magneto. He's the master of metals right? and those darts must have had a metal needle right? So maybe Magneto's body can't be affected by anything made of metal.

OR I have an idea that maybe Leech's power only works on mutants that have some kind of organism based power. Beast's mutation is to do with his body, as is Mystique's. Rogue's power is to do with her touching another living creature, Shadowcat makes her body pass through object's and Juggernaut is incredibly strong in body. Therefore as Magneto's power lies in non organic entities, the cure that was made from Leech didn't work on him because it only affects mutants who's powers have some kind of organic base to them.

Not even knowing the in-joke, I rather liked "I'm the Juggernaught, bitch!". It's one of the lines I'll be quoting most often :

Also, though I doubt it will happen- it is posisble that Cyclops is not dead. They never found a body (granted, Pheonix disintegrates people, but still...), we only have a mentally unstable Jean's posisble hint that he's dead.

>>Second Quest: With all due respect, Ratner is an inferior helmer to Singer, imho.<

Overall, I agree with you, though I think both Ratner and Singer have their respective weaknesses in different areas.

During the whole movie I kept saying to myself, "I'm the Juggernaut, Bitch." Then when he said it, I had to keep the pee in.

I felt that of the 3, this was the more emotional story, a lot more heart then the previous two, which was good. There won't be an X4, the Last Stand is quite literal. Yeah, I know Magneto got his powers back and professor X was alive at the end, but they're done with the X-Men. The Wolverine movie is quickly approaching.

If they do come to make another one, I would hope that Cyclops is still alive, along with Grey, but at the same time they could use this to go into some of the other line-ups of X-Men.

While not a great film, Retner included more aspects that were much more true to the comics than Singer, who has a strong dislike for comics and will be known for making two of the biggest comic franchises in Hollywood history. Singer for all of his attention to the story never made an X-Men film that had this much feeling. I came out thinking how great the previous two films would have been if it would have had Beast, and to hear his bantor with Wolverine would have been great. Singer focused way too much on the Wolverine story, especially with X2 which made that movie not have a lot of logic. Ok, so Cox wants to erdaicate all mutants, but at the same time carries out experiments in making mutants even more powerful to use as weapons, hmmm, doesn't make sense to me. The X-Men franchise, while good, is not great. It doesn't stand up to Spider-man and won't stand up to Superman. It can't, due to the fact that its an ensamble. Those other franchises get the luxuory to focus on one person's story, not 5 or 6. I think the film came off good, while slow at times and trying to get way too much accomplished in a short period. It made more sense than X2, and featured a more emotional story, and better special effects.

And for Singer's greatness, why did he let Storm's accent go in X2? It was there in the first, then it went away in X2. Maybe that's another one of her powers. . .

During the whole movie I kept saying to myself, "I'm the Juggernaut, Bitch." Then when he said it, I had to keep the pee in.

I felt that of the 3, this was the more emotional story, a lot more heart then the previous two, which was good.

While not a great film, Retner included more aspects that were much more true to the comics than Singer, who has a strong dislike for comics and will be known for making two of the biggest comic franchises in Hollywood history. Singer for all of his attention to the story never made an X-Men film that had this much feeling.

These are the wrongest things I've heard all day.

This movie had no heart. It was shallow and tried to make up for that by being flashy. Most of the comic aspects in it where efforts to make up for the lack of substance by drawing your attention to random fan service.

I think some of you guys watched a different movie than I did. I thought it was excellent, and surpassed the first movie by light years and X2 by a considerable amount. Much more emotional impact, and it had echoes of ROTS in it.

I think some of you guys watched a different movie than I did. I thought it was excellent, and surpassed the first movie by light years and X2 by a considerable amount. Much more emotional impact, and it had echoes of ROTS in it.

ok good, I thought I was the only one who liked this better then the first two.

I thought the film was great, a real crowd pleaser. The audience I was with just ate it up. Sure it focuses more on action then the previous films but they've been building up "The War" over the last two and now we finally get to see it. Good stuff. The action scenes were tremendous. Love Kelsey Grammer as The Beast. I was also surprised by how good Helle Berry was as Storm. Giving her more screentime and partnering her up with Wolverine really made the character better.

I was disappointed to see that several shots and scenes from the trailers didn't make the final cut and the film's running time could have been expanded by about 15 to 20 minutes for more character building moments. However as it stands, X3 is a lean, mean, exhilarating film.

Those of us without the added baggage/weight of the comic books or other story backgrounds probably like it more than those who have either of those things.

I've never read X-Men comics (well, one or two over the years, but that's it). I don't know the Dark Phoenix story, and I don't care how faithful the film is to the comics. I went into it looking for a fun movie, and it's on that level that, as far as I'm concerned, it failed to deliver.

SPOILERS BELOW, probably

This movie was a mess from start to finish. It had no substance, and it was filled with ludicrous nonsensical stuff. Jean Grey survives, summons Scott from thousands of miles away, he comes -- and she kills him? Why? Why does nobody care enough to do more than say, "I think Scott's dead"? So she gets horny, Wolverine turns her down, and she gets pissed off and starts to go on a rampage. This is exacerbated when Xavier, in a truly idiotic move, tries to mess with her head while she's conscious of him doing so. So she turns into a Dark Willow clone because she's sexually frustrated, having killed her boyfriend for no apparent reason, and then, instead of attempting to deal with her rage, they try to brainwash her and basically telepathically lobotomize her. And these are the good guys? Meanwhile, a "cure" has been discovered for mutants, and Magneto still is not a fan of eugenics and decides to fight it. So he assembles a team of low-class mutants and uses them as cannon fodder -- isn't this exactly what he's supposed to be fighting against? Meanwhile, the lovely and interesting Mystique is humanized (another thing the consequences of which might be interesting to delve into, but no, let's show some more water flowing upward instead), apparently for no real reason other than to replace her with the ridiculous Juggernaut. Tons of new characters are introduced, and then not used. Just thrown in to be seen. Why so much hype over Angel? He was barely in the movie. Why the hell was Xavier smiling as he was being disintegrated? This was no "In winning, you lose" sort of martyrdom -- he was simply going out like a punk. And the scene was poorly done, too -- most of the audience was laughing at it. Why bring in the Phoenix, and then just have her stand around for most of the movie? The dialogue was stilted and cliche-ridden -- people in the audience were saying the lines before the characters and getting them word-perfect. How did it suddenly switch from day to night once they reached Alcatraz? How, after a national monument and Alcatraz are destroyed, hundreds of soldiers killed, and so on and so forth, is everything suddenly peachy-keen at the end between the mutant community and the government? If you're going the f/x trumps everything else route of filmmaking, why not have Phoenix and Storm duke it out a bit? Why even bother doing Dark Phoenix if you're not going to have Scott in the movie? This movie was just a muddled, pointless mess that was full of nothing except excuses for yet another boring special effect. Ugh.

1. I know enough of Dark Phoenix, without having read it, to wonder why they would make a film of that story without using Scott.

2. This is a movie. I should not need to be fluent in thirty years of X-Men lore to be able to understand it, let alone enjoy it. I know enough of the comics, am familiar enough with the marvelverse, to know who these characters are, etc etc. That has nothing to do with it. I didn't loathe the film because I haven't read the comics. I loathed it because it was an awful piece of filmmaking.

X-3 is basically a movie for the fanboys. Clearly, a non-fanboy guy like me did not enjoy it. How bad was it? Well, I'm almost tempted to say that 'The Da VInci Code' was more enjoyable.

Almost...

So, let's see...

--Look up in the sky, it's a kid with wings! He's....a kid with wings. He flies around. Uh...that's it. Wow. And for this, they had to kill Cyclops in order to give screentime to this character whose name I'm not bothered to find out (I'm sure the fanboys know his name, his shoe size, and the colour of his underwear).

--It's the halle Berry show! She can kick azzz, dawg! She can fly now so that Halle can claim "I did my own stunts, ye all!". And while her friends all have to fight hundreds of other mutants (who somehow get beaten by less than ten X-Men ), Storm gets her own one-on-one catfight. Grrrrrl power for Halle, man! And for this, they killed Prof. X so that "the Oscar winner" can be the centre of attention...

--Sigh...what is worse than watching Prof X's death? Well, there's the gravestone thingy where Xavier's image looks like the logo for the movie 'Caligula' (and trust me, you have not lived until you've seen 'Caligula'. Imagine a porn movie with Shakespearean actors ). And the eulogy delivered by...yup, Storm. Sigh...at that point, I knew this movie wasn't for me.

--OMG, it's Beast! He's blue! He's...a member of the Administration??? So soon after a bloody assasination attempt by another blue mutant? Wow, I can't wait for Dubya to appoint a Taliban guy as head of Homeland Security, that'll improve his poll numbers for sure. And his blatant mutant-ness is just glossed over, for a guy that must get stares whenever he goes Beast is as unemotional as a Vulcan and as serene as a Zen master on Prozac. Nope, can't waste time on such things, when we could show him kicking ass!!! OMG, Beast can jump!11!1

--Hello Cyclops. Bye bye Cyclops...off screen. Well, congratulations to the director, he made even a non-Cyclops fan like me hate the for this. Well done, bravo. After all, we have to give the screentime for Storm, no?

--Hello Mystique, goodbye.....eh, you get the pciture. Another major character from the previous two movies sacrificed on the altar of fanboyism. "We want the wing guy!11!11" And they still complain about the lack of Gambit, in the same way rabid Tolkien fanatics complain about Tom Bombadil *shudders*

--Sir Ian McKellan is a GOD! Only a GOD can be the saving grace of not one, but TWO awful summer movies. I will now construct an altar for Sir Ian. Bow down and worship, ye heathen scum! Worship him, for he shall be known as 'One who brings dignity to a dorky helmet and strange hand gestures meant to illustrate mutant powers'.

--Attacking Alcatraz 101: destroy major landmark and send in mutants to engage hand-to-hand battles against soldiers armed with gun. In the meantime, you do not utilise the many metal cars vailable until later (after we have the keeewwl "Mutants jumping" scene) nor did you use your super-mutant until she gets pissed on her own. Brilliant, really. I can't see why he failed. Especially when you have hundreds against less than ten X-Men (one of whom is engaging in a catfight with someone who desperately wants to look/act/talk like a cross between the angry girl in 'Lost' and Will Smith's wife).

--If Gandalf...err, Magneto can lift a FREAKING BRIDGE then why can't he just life lost of metal objcts from afar and dump them on the bloody island thus achieving his objective? At tyhe very least, kill lots of soldeirs. But noooo, we must have huuuuge fight scene that makes 'The Mummy Returns' look like Oscar material.

--"I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!". Well, that about sums up the rich dialogue, three dimensional caracterizations and developed script made for this movie.

--Another saving grace: Rogue was somewhat enjoyable. No "Let's give her extar powers to fulfill fanboy wet dreams", they actually kept her different from the comcis. Wow. Sure, like everything else the subplot was disjointed, didn't mak

X-3 is basically a movie for the fanboys. Clearly, a non-fanboy guy like me did not enjoy.

Shut it. This movie insults fanboys more then it pleases. It's like how to do the Phoenix Saga the wrong way. For all it's fanboy pandering the one that would actully fit isn't in it. Where the hell is the pryokenetic Phoenix symbol?

LMAO! So wait, the fanboys hate it too? Man, X-3 is clearly a success!

It's like how to do the Phoenix Saga the wrong way

Oh yes, the director forgot the ALIENS!!11!!1

Thank God for small favours.

Oh, while I'm at it...

Did anyone else find themselves supporting Magneto's stand rather than the pathetic wimpiness of the X-Men? Magneto and his mutants have every right to defend themselves, especially after the 'cure guns' were used against Mystique (oh, they tried to make us hate Magneto after he abandoned Mystique, but I cannot hate the charismatic Sir Ian ). Claiming mutants should just sit back and do nothing is like claiming the 13 American colonies should do nothing and bow to King George.

The fact that the X-Men in the end used the cure against Magneto pretty much sealed my hatred of them. And hey, the "cured" him without his consent. Is that not a violation, a RAPE, against Magneto? What a wonderful way to make one support the heroes.

Thankfully, there's still the possibility for 'Magneto the White' to return.

This was a very complex film, with a lot of issues and a lot of grey area

Grey area? It could have, but alas we must jump to the next fanboy moment.

"OMG, the metal guy threw Wolverine just like the comics!11!"

"OMG, Beast is roaring!11!"

Oh, and of course...

"I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!"

Pure gold. I'm sure that quote can bring up lots of Freudian issues and be relevantin this post-modern era. Perhaps Juggernaut's bad lines is symbolic of his longing for companionship, or mask some sort of abandonment issue that he has concealed beneath his tough guy exterior.

Or it could just be another bad line in another crappy movie.

EDIT: Oh, and Jean's attempt at having "two personalities" was laughable. Truly laughable. Oh well, maybe the actress recognised the crapiness of the script and simply performed to get the paycheck.